Louisville head coach Rick Pitino celebrates after the team defeated Michigan 82-76 during the NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball championship game, Monday, April 8, 2013, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Recognition by his peers as being worthy of the Naismith Basketball Hall of fame was just the start of Rick Pitino's day.

It got better.

With that news greeting the Louisville coach at mid-morning Monday, Pitino could have coasted the rest of the day in the knowledge that he had accomplished what most coaches never dream of, but he was just getting started.

Before it was over, Pitino separated himself a little more from every other college basketball coach, including the ones in the Hall of Fame when he coached the Cardinals, coming to the Atlantic Coast Conference next season, to a national championship with a stirring 82-76 victory over Michigan, making Pitino the only coach to take two college teams - first it was Kentucky -- to a national title.

In a game in which each team was known for its tricky defenses, these teams shot like they were in a gym all by themselves. You can chalk it up to a lack of preparation time on both sides for this game, but if you were to ask the record crowd of 74,326, they would likely vote their approval.

At the end of a season that was trashed by coaches and the media for being brutish in the way officials allowed contact all over the court, the final game turned into a beauty that rose out of the mess.

Michigan ran out to an early lead with a barrage of 3-point shots in the first half, stealing the strategy that Pitino was known for earlier in his career when he was credited with being the first coach to successfully exploit the 3-point shot when it was introduced to the college game in 1986, but here was Michigan, using it like the Wolverines invented it.

It was their half. At one point about midway through the first half, Michigan was playing with five freshmen on the floor as members of the school's Fab Five from 1991 looked on from the stands.

One of those freshmen John Beilein has is a kid named Spike Albrecht, born in Indiana who can shoot it like, well, like you have always been told kids can shoot in Indiana. His long range shooting in the first half opened a 10-point lead for Michigan when he went 4-for-4 beyond the arc, two of them from well beyond the arc.

Albrecht, whose only other scholarship offer was from Appalachian State, threw one in from somewhere near Marietta for a 31-21 lead and Pitino did the smart thing and had his defense come out and contest the kid, at which point Albrecht dribbled through traffic and made a layup for a 33-21 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the first half. At that point, Albrecht, who played his senior season in high school in Massachusetts last year had 17 - more than half - of his team's points. He averaged 9.3 last year at Mount Herman Prep.

It was Albrecht's last points of the night.

Pitino's team took over early in the second half, Luke Hancock wound up making all five of his 3-pointers and the Cards held off Michigan each time the Wolverines drew close.

Now we get him next year in the ACC, along with Syracuse and Jim Boeheim.